


Wings on her feet

by Gilli_ann



Series: The prisoner in the oak [4]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dancing, Druids, Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 01:25:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7146497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gilli_ann/pseuds/Gilli_ann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One magical night, Morgana joins the festivities of the druids that harbour Mordred and Vivienne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wings on her feet

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Merlin BBC does not belong to me, but to Shine TV and the BBC. I intend no copyright infringement and make no profit.

  
The druids gather around several big bonfires, which radiate heat and make Morgana's cheeks glow. 

She's been welcomed with friendliness and good cheer. They've served her a simple but sufficient meal, ripe grain filling her belly, the sweetness of berries delicious on her tongue. Now she nurses a cup of a honeyed mulled drink, perhaps some sort of mead. It has warmed her to the core. She relaxes in the fire-lit darkness, taking in the unexpected proceedings.

Magic is such a dangerous, somber gift. It doesn't lend itself to relaxed joy. She never imagined sorcerers behaving like this, even if they're only druids. Eager talk and happy laughter fill the camp. The noise rises into the night to mingle with sparks flying from the fires.

Before she really knows how it happens, she has joined a line of dancers, weaving in and out between the bonfires. Someone is playing a jaunty fiddle tune. The dancers move to surround the fiddler, circling him in the flickering light. Their feet speed with the music's rhythm, an exhilarating, breath-stealing pace.

Several people start singing; - bawdy lyrics that would have made Morgana blush or turn away haughtily under other circumstances. Now she's just grinning and breathlessly shouting the required responses with everyone else, stepping rapidly in tune, clapping her hands, twirling around so fast that her long braid whips through the air when the circle of dancers breaks apart and reforms.

The hands that take hers and release them during the twists and turns of the dancing are damp with body heat and sweat. She senses no caution nor forced respect. To her hosts she is an equal, no more. And no less.

She glows with the pleasure of this strange evening in the wilds, enjoying herself more than she ever did before it became clear to her what her fate would be, what destiny demanded. As Lady Morgana she always had to keep aloof from such common pastimes. During her year with Morgause, every waking hour was filled with the solemn intensity of her sister's fierce dedication to restoring the ways of the old religion. And Morgana the High Priestess, who lives to bring Arthur and his court down and to claim what's rightfully hers, that woman is forever focused on planning and scheming and thinking ahead. She has never had time to spare for simple, sorrowless fun.

Somewhere out there, beyond the bonfire's reach, she knows the strange unearthly girl is watching her. Niniane – _Vivienne_ – with her unsettling and penetrating gaze, staring through the thin veil of this reality and into the next, hidden from others.

And Mordred is there, looking to Morgana with possessive adoration, her small but lethal knight and true.

The fates will soon enough reclaim her attention and allegiance. She knows this, and accepts it without reservation. She does not intend to stray from her chosen path till victory is hers. For tonight, she's putting that aside. Just this once she finds that it's wonderfully liberating merely to be alive. To rejoice in the here and now.

The future is solid and set in stone, she thinks. But the present is fluid, shifting and shimmering, a flame fanned high by unpredictable winds. 

She laughs as she swirls into darkness, soars through the night, then dances back into the firelight, wings on her feet. Free.


End file.
